For a few days, HellenisticGreek.com may show up in your browser as insecure. But that problem will resolve itself in a few days when the domain name registration is finished migrating to a new provider. Since there are no transactions to be completed on the site anyway, it will not be a problem.

What is particularly outstanding about the site is that it is based on the work of many people committed to open resources. For morphological tagging, for example, he uses James Tauber’s MorphGNT. The Greek text is the SBLGNT (not completely open source, but open enough to allow what LaParola is doing with it). And Wilson has also provided access to Westcott and Hort (1881) and Tischendorf (8th edition; 1869-1872) drawing on open source materials, and he has even made it possible to embed these materials in other websites.

In Teaching with Tech 2016: Language Educators Talking Tech, Paul Nitz has recently published an article arguing for using digital flashcards in teaching Ancient Greek even when using a communicative approach. This is something of an unusual proposal, but Dr. Nitz accompanies it with compelling arguments. In particular, he recognizes the differences between modern language teaching where immersion in the language is possible and extremely useful, and ancient language classes where the same level of immersion in the language is simply not a reasonable possibility.

You can read Paul’s article online at SmashWords.com. I’d love to hear what you think.

Thanks to Sententia Antiquae for the snow-related vocabulary. What an appropriate post for our current situation! We don’t have a lot of snow here in Chapel Hill, but it’s enough to make minor roads dangerous, causing local schools to be closed for the day.

While I’ve tried to include discussions of all of the software packages that allow reading and analysis of Ancient Greek texts, it is almost certain that I have missed some. If you have a favorite program that I have missed, please use the Contact page to let me know. I will be glad to add any program that you find useful for reading Ancient Greek or analyzing Ancient Greek texts.

Felicia Logozzo and Paolo Poccetti have edited an impressive compilation of linguistic research on Ancient Greek. All but one of the chapters address either Classical or Homeric Greek, but one, a brief note on synthetic forms of the future in Hellenistic Greek, addresses the time period of our focus here.

Have any of you seen this book? Tronci’s article is written in Italian, but many of the other articles are in English. Do we have any Italian speakers who would be willing to read Tronci’s article and comment on it?

I have updated the Dictionaries page to make clear which resources linked there are running on secure servers and which are not. Since the implementation of HTTPS everywhere, Chrome and some other browsers are flagging sites as insecure when they are not running under that standard. Any page that links to them is also classified as insecure. This impacts what I am doing at Greek-Language.com and GreekLinguistics.com. To solve this problem, I have temporarily disabled links to sites running on insecure servers, but kept the link text so that you can paste it into your browser’s location bar if you are willing to take the very minor risk it presents.

Links to insecure pages are shown in dark red and do not do anything when you click on them.

http://ExampleInsecureDomain.com/

If want to visit the linked page, you will need to copy the link and paste it into the location bar at the top of your browser window.

In volume 8, issue 1 of Teaching Classical Languages, Paul Nitz has written a very helpful review of M. Díaz Avila’s Alexandros, Nitz considers the possible suitability of Avila’s book for a text-based introduction to Ancient Greek using a Communicative Model. The review is well worth reading.

Here is how the Greek Phrase for “Merry Christmas” would have sounded between the time of Jesus’ birth and about 250 CE. It is doubtful that anyone actually uttered this greeting in the first century after Jesus was born, but if they had, here’s how it would have sounded!

I’ve provided the recording in three popular formats so that you can hear it even if you are using an outdated browser. At least one of the formats should work for you.

Why is it likely no one used this saying before 100CE? Well, we just have no evidence that Christmas was celebrated at all before that date. The invention of the holiday came a bit later. Still, feel free to use the greeting now that we do celebrate Christmas!

A note on spelling

There is one small difference in spelling of the Christmas greeting between 300 CE and the present: the system of written accents has been simplified. Contrast the following spellings. Can you see the difference?